The Queen of Mages (6 page)

“Yes, all this greenery is just fascinating.
Does m’lady have some plan in mind, or shall we continue on
westward until we’re swimming in the sea?” Amira threw an apricot
at her, but Katin batted it aside, sticking her tongue out. Huffman
looked appalled that a
vala
would disrespect her lady so,
but she’d known Amira for a long time before the girl became a
noble, or even a merchant’s wife.

Amira stood, planting her hands on her hips
and taking deep breaths. Finally she strode off toward the stream.
Huffman, alarmed, dropped his food to follow her, but Katin stopped
him with a hand on his arm. “M’lady is twenty paces off. I believe
she can make the trip back unaided.” The coachman stared after
Amira, dubious, but finally the tension went out of his legs and he
settled back.

Amira watched the stream for a while,
holding very still. Katin watched the sunlight glint off her lady’s
golden hair, and listened to the leaves fluttering in the branches
above. It was easy to forget her troubles here, she had to admit.
But then she began to consider the real threats that might appear:
wild animals, bandits, sudden storms. She kept glancing at the
distant trees, nervous that any sign of movement might herald an
attack.

Suddenly Amira’s hand flew to her temple and
she staggered. At the same moment, a splash erupted from the
stream, and a puff of steam billowed up from it. This time Huffman
was up like a shot, long strides taking him to Amira in seconds.
Katin was close behind. “Come back and sit, m’lady,” she said over
Huffman’s “Are you all right, m’lady?”

Amira nodded, and followed them back to the
picnic without a word. She sat down and cast an eye at Katin. “Did
you see?”

See? See what? The splash?
She
glanced back at the stream, which flowed placidly along. “Yes, it’s
a very pretty stream,” she offered.
What in the world is going
on?

Amira ate again, and they passed another
hour by the stream before Katin suggested it might be time to
return. The sun was drooping down, and it would take a while to
reach the farm and find somewhere to sleep. Katin did not relish
the prospect of spending the night in a hayloft.

———

Night had almost fallen before they found
another inn, this one much smaller and in worse repair than the Inn
of the Western Well. Their travels had brought them halfway to
Bridger’s Rush, and Katin hoped Amira would turn them around after
this night. She wanted the safety of their manse again, no matter
how badly Callaston smelled.

The Smiling Willow’s innkeeper sweated
constantly from his rolls of fat, and despite Katin’s attempts to
bargain, he claimed he had only one room available, and that one
smaller than Katin’s cell in the manse. Amira wearied quickly of
their haggling, and she snapped at them until Katin gave up, paid
the man, and escorted her lady to the common room.

Amira devoured two large bowls of beef and
carrot stew, and all the bread the cook could bring. Katin had
never seen her so famished as on this trip. Normally she ate
lightly and exercised regularly, always insisting how important it
was to keep herself slim. Perhaps it was just the excitement of a
trip into the countryside, but Amira had been acting so peculiar
the last few days. Even for her.

The meal much improved Amira’s mood, but by
the time they got to their room Katin was completely out of sorts.
She shut the door and turned to her lady. Amira had only really
been
a lady for less than a year, and they’d known each
other so much longer than that, that in private they treated one
another as equals. Usually.

Katin would have to be blunt. Amira was
excellent at turning aside conversations to suit her own ends.
“Amira, what is the matter with you? You’ve been acting very
strange since we left Callaston.”

Amira did not look at her. “What do you
mean?”

“I mean, the fire at the other inn. The… the
whatever that was, at the stream today. And you’re eating like a
horse.” Suddenly a terrible thought seized her. “Amira! Are you
pregnant?
”

Amira’s eyes bulged. “No! Oh, my goodness,
no. You know I haven’t been with a man since Valmir.”

“Well… not that I know of… I just…” Katin
flinched inwardly. Of course Amira couldn’t be pregnant, why had
she said something so stupid?

“When would I have had time? You’re with me
practically every moment. And why would I hide that from you, of
all people?” But Amira did not seem displeased. On the contrary,
she met Katin’s eyes now, smiling. “I have something to show you.
But help me undress first.”

Katin did so. Amira shook out her hair and
flexed her fingers. “Blow out that candle.” She went to stand by
the door as Katin looked at the little candle sitting on the
bedside table. She blew it out, though the stand-lamp near the door
still cast soft shadows through its frosted glass globe. Amira
ignored it, focusing on the candle from across the room.
“Watch.”

Katin wondered what Amira could be up to.
Perhaps she’s learned how to breathe fire, like that magician we
saw last Wintergift.

Amira stared at the candle for a long
minute. Then her hand came slowly up, as if to reach for something,
but she did not move forward. The candle suddenly flared back
alight.

Katin jerked back from it. “What the—” She
gulped down a curse. “How did you do that?”

“Blow it out again.” Katin hesitated, but
obeyed, and waited a few more seconds as Amira stared intensely at
the candle, as if she could light it by sheer force of will. The
wick burst into flame again. This time Amira’s hand never left her
side.

If she hadn’t known Amira for so many years,
she would likely have fled the room screaming. But something held
her in check. Trust, perhaps. She swallowed her pride with a dry
mouth, and made a silent prayer to the Aspect of Courage. “Tell me
what is going on,” she pleaded.

“The headaches,” Amira said, drifting over
to sit down beside Katin on the bed. Her eyes looked a little red,
and she drooped as if sleepy. “The last few days… I can
see
the pain, in my head. It appears as a, a little ember, perhaps. A
little orange ball of flame in my mind’s eye. But it’s not just my
imagination. It moves. I can
move
it. And when I
push
…” She flicked her fingers at the candle. “The pain goes
away… and that happens.”

Katin understood all the words, but together
it made no sense. “You can start fires with your
mind?
”

Amira smirked. “I’m glad you
understand.”

Katin groped for something to say. “The
headaches… are they getting worse?”

“On the contrary, they’ve been getting
better since that first inn. That one was the worst yet. I felt
like my head would split open. When you went to get the food, I
ended up writhing on the floor…” She stopped and hugged herself for
a moment. “That was the worst pain I’d ever felt. Worse than
anything.” She took a shuddering breath, and Katin saw a tear fall
from one eye. Amira wiped it away quickly. “But since then, they’ve
been getting better. And the ember has been getting brighter.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Katin
demanded. The bitterness in her voice surprised her, and she bit
her tongue to hold back another outburst.

Amira paid it no mind. “It’s only been three
days, dear. I’m just getting a handle on this myself.” She leaned
over and blew out the candle. Seconds later it burned again. “The
ember seems to persist now, and my head barely hurts at all.”

Katin’s gut clenched. This was a
disaster
. “We have to go back to Callaston. At once. It’s
not safe to stay here.”

“We need sleep,” Amira said, yawning. It was
barely full dark, out through the windows. “We can decide in the
morning what we’ll do next.” She yawned again. “I get so exhausted
after doing that a few times.” She curled up on the bed, her head
resting against Katin’s hip. Katin wanted to talk to her more, to
find out what this madness truly was, but Amira was asleep in
seconds, snoring softly.

Katin gently lowered Amira’s head onto a
pillow. She paced for a while, thinking.
We must keep this
hidden. No one can ever know.
The prospect of keeping this
secret for years or decades felt like a crushing weight. Someone
would find out eventually, and what then? They’d lose everything,
be outcast, or burned for witches, or, or… She had a vision of an
angry mob outside their manse, throwing torches through the
windows, and she shuddered.

And Amira wouldn’t make it easy. She’d want
to experiment and practice with this power. She would never ignore
something this interesting; it would be another adventure to
her.

———

In the morning they found Huffman in the
common room eating breakfast. He grumbled politely about the filthy
spot in the stable where he’d put down his bedroll, and Amira
promised him a room of his own at any further inns. Huffman nodded
in gracious surprise, and went out to look after his horses. Katin
clenched her jaw. The girl was too free with money, even if she did
have a lot of it.

Breakfast this morning was oily sausage and
fried potatoes. Amira stared down at them, concentrating. “M’lady,
what are you doing?” Katin muttered.

Amira shushed her. “I fancy blackened
sausage,” she said with a glint in her eye.

“Amira,
no
—” There was a
pop
and Katin felt a wave of heat on her face. One side of the sausage
turned black instantly, but then the pool of oil it sat in caught
fire. Amira yelped and lurched backward, toppling over in her chair
and crashing to the floor. The common room’s only other diner
twisted around in his chair to look, bushy black eyebrows raised in
surprise. Katin shouted at him, “Help! Fire!”

The man darted across the room, bringing a
cloth napkin. He smothered the flames, splashing oil everywhere and
knocking sausage onto the floor, but the fire went out quickly. The
cook burst out of the kitchen, waving her spoon and demanding to
know what had happened.

Katin came to Amira’s side, helping her up.
There were no candles or lamps lit in here, as it was morning.
“There must have been a hot ember in the oil,” she said quickly.
The cook stared, incredulous, but Katin made noises about her lady
needing to recover and ushered Amira out at once. Amira was still
blinking, confused, and let herself be pulled along.

Katin slammed the door to their room. “What
in the black spirits is wrong with you?” She fought to keep from
shouting, but it was a near thing. “Can’t you go one day without
doing something so… so reckless?”

“I’m sorry,” Amira snapped. “I
had
to. Using it makes the pain go away.”

“I thought you said there was hardly any
more pain!”

“I lied!” Amira shouted. “It’s getting
better, I swear, but it still hurts. I didn’t want you to worry any
more than you had to.”

“I have to do all the worrying, because you
never do,” Katin bit out. “Amira, don’t you realize how dangerous
this is? If someone finds out about this… You have to talk to me.
We have to work together, or the world will drag us down into the
muck again.”

“I was never in the muck,” Amira sniffed at
her.

Katin turned away and pounded a fist on the
wall to keep herself from slapping Amira instead. She said nothing,
trying to let her anger ebb.

After a minute, she heard Amira sigh behind
her. “I’m sorry, Katin. I just… I forget that I’m not really a
lady.”

“You are a lady,” Katin countered, turning
to face her. “By law and custom.”

“But I was never born to it. I never learned
how.”

“Well you’ve fooled all the other nobles,”
Katin said. “This… this power you have. You have to be careful.
We
have to be careful. Promise me you won’t do anything that
stupid again.”

“I’m not stupid,” Amira whispered at her,
eyes downcast.

“Promise me,” Katin insisted. When Amira
nodded slightly, Katin went on. “And promise me we’ll go back to
Callaston. Today. Not tomorrow, not after another picnic in the
woods or another inn almost burned down.” Amira nodded again, and
sat down on the bed, seeming to draw into herself.

Katin hated to browbeat her closest friend,
but she had no choice. Amira would never learn caution otherwise,
and Katin could not watch her every second.

She fetched her coin purse and went back to
the common room. A young boy kneeled on the floor, scrubbing at it
where bits of flaming sausage had left char marks, as the cook
watched over him. Katin apologized for her lady’s clumsiness and
offered a few pieces of silver for their trouble.

The cook accepted them. “You’d best be gone
soonest,” she said irritably.

———

Huffman had them on the road within an hour.
Katin directed him east, back toward Callaston, as Amira sat
quietly in the coach, hands folded on her lap.

They rolled through the countryside in
silence. Amira looked out the window from time to time, but mostly
sat studying her hands. Katin had felt righteous and commanding
when they left the inn, but those feelings had faded. Now she just
felt acid climbing her throat.

A wall of storm clouds passed by them to the
south. Cold wind curled in through the windows, but they were
spared rain. They ate in the coach as it bumped along, and in the
late afternoon came back through a village they’d stopped at the
day before. When Amira spoke, she startled Katin out of a drowsy
reverie.

“I want to stop there.” She pointed at a
little temple by the side of the road, isolated from the other
buildings. “To pray.”

Katin reflexively wanted to deny her, but
instead she said, “Fine. I’ll go in with you.”

If Amira was surprised, she didn’t show it.
Katin had no use for the Niderium, not after a childhood spent
praying for salvation that would never come. Only luck and her own
hard work had saved her from the perils of Cleavesport’s streets.
Where had the Caretaker been, all those years? She never saw the
Aspect of Joy, or Ardor, or Sacrifice. Her world was nothing but
Terror and Despair, and her own Courage. She would not credit the
Caretaker with that.